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Preparing The Grid For The Next Superstorm

At an energy conference outside Washington, D.C. yesterday, moderator Scott Clavenna asked for a show of hands of how many people had experienced a power outage due to weather in the last year. Half the hands went up.

A plague of severe weather, from Superstorm Sandy to Washington’s strange summer derecho, has exposed severe shortcomings in the power grid. Outages that used to last a few hours now can drag on for the better part of a week as repair crews contend with flooding, downed trees and snapped high-voltage power lines across vast regions. Will we ever see a more resilient and smarter power grid?

This was a topic of a session at the annual conference of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). Representatives from a big power company, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Marine Corps and the Department of Energy (DOE) were asked what innovations are on the way. Judging by their tentative and speculative answers, we are still years away from seeing significant, large-scale improvements to the power grid. But here are some glimpses into what that future might look like.

Transformers on Wheels. Jalal Mapar, director of the Resilient Systems Division at the Department of Homeland Security, said his department is testing out a rolling, bus-sized transformer that could temporarily replace one destroyed in an emergency. A blown transformer triggered the blackout that darkened lower Manhattan after Superstorm Sandy.

Superconducting Cables. The DHS’s office of science and technology is funding the development of a superconducting power cable (pdf) that has 10 times the density of a copper cable. Besides its power-packed size, its structure makes possible an “internet-like architecture” that would allow electricity to more readily flow where it’s needed and potentially avoid local outages.

Killing Live Wires. Also, Mapar said, DHS is looking into ways to cut power to smaller blocks of the grid so that in the case of downed wires, emergency personnel won’t risk electrocution.

Electric Cars as Neighborhood Batteries. It isn’t a new idea that electric cars, with their large and dense batteries, could store excess power on the grid. But the idea has had little opportunity for testing because electric vehicles are still rare creatures in America’s garages.

Judith Lagano, a vice president at NRG Energy, the largest independent power producer in the U.S., mentioned that her company, the grid operator PJM, and BMW are collaborating with the University of Delaware on a project to use 15 electric Mini Coopers for energy storage.

Crowdsourcing Outage Solutions. Anthony Lucas, a program manager for infrastructure security at DOE, said his department is working with utilities to develop applications that would allow people to use their mobile phones to help power crews identify and more quickly fix power problems.

Whatever solutions emerge will have to be executed as expertly as possible, Mapar said. “Smart grids are inevitable. They are going to happen. How do we design them smartly, so we don’t have to redesign them in five or 10 years?”

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Eastern cities have been mandating utilities to improve communication of outage management situation with customers, in the aftermath of outage. Also, utilities are investing in emerging technologies for improving grid network intelligence. This can help to improve operations during storms and floods.

The key is to understand that capital investment for infrastructure modernization needs strong business drivers. It can come from competitive pressure, regulatory mandates or, operational issues.